muttley hates software: automake

From: Simon Wistow
Date: 14:21 on 13 Jan 2004
Subject: automake
I cannot actually believe that somebody thought that automake and all
its brethren were the best solution to the problem of installing things
in C.
I mean, it's not like it removes all external dependencies since you
have to have the right version of automake installed (and slight
differences in version can make a big difference), it's not easy to grok
let alone write and requires lots of tweakignt o get it to run right on
different platforms.
I started this week actually looking forward to coming into work - I had
stuff I really wanted to do. By this morning I was doing subconcious
work avoidance. The reason - M4 macros. And a bit of XS but mostly M4
macros.
From the dire documentation, crap syntax and just general square peg
round hole nature of the whole thing automake is truly hateable
software.

From: peter
Date: 18:18 on 13 Jan 2004
Subject: Re: automake
> I mean, it's not like it removes all external dependencies since you > have to have the right version of automake installed
If you don't have automake at all, installs actually work better. :)
And when the alternative was Larry Wall's "Configure" or Imake....
Me, I'm a big fan of "edit the makefile".